He is but another statue honoring hate and division. And he is departure places the memory and legacy of another Confederate soldier right where it belongs – with those who thought they were right.

In life, he was John Wilson, another relic from a massive effort by the United Daughters of the Confederacy to keep alive the memory of a mission to retain slavery and continue the diminishment of black people.

John Wilson didn’t mean anything to me then, but he does now, now because when Donald Trump woke up sleeping hate and told those silently reveling in it that it was time to “take our country back,” black people knew what he meant. So did white supremacists.

He didn’t mean those whom John Wilson sought to subjugate: He meant those who believed what John Wilson did.

The Daughters funded many statues and roads across America to ensure the memory of the side that lost the American Civil War. That memory is finally being forced where it belongs off public land where because this is America should not be celebrating it.

So from now on, every time someone asks me why don’t we leave slavery in the past, I can point to a statue and say: Why didn’t America?